


Saved by the monster

by Stiiliinsski



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Battle of Hogwarts, F/M, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-06 20:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13418796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stiiliinsski/pseuds/Stiiliinsski
Summary: Dramione prompt + "her world changed when she learned the monsters were protecting her" Draco saves Hermione from BellatrixShe looks at him, a minute too long, and wonders when he stopped being the monster and instead became someone fighting on their side of the war.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any of the characters!  
> Please if you like this send me a prompt to write. I’ll write for Bughead, Stydia, Dramione, Snowbarry, Klaroline, FitzSimmons, Darvey or basically anything Marvel related, mostly :) Or if you have some other ship in mind ask and I’ll see whether I know their dynamics! :)  
> Also on Tumblr!

One thought that was rushing through her mind as they ran between trees, trying to escape the Catchers, was  ‘ _We need to save Harry_ ’. And later when she thought about it she realized how strange it was that through the years it has become normal to put Harry’s wellbeing in front of her own. But in those moments when immediate danger rested upon them there wasn’t even a choice to make between her own safety and his. Until the moment Harry was safe she wouldn’t think about her own safety. So when they were finally captured, she twisted and turned, trying to figure out if he managed to outrun them somehow. Her mind was in overload as she shot out the stinging hex.

 

 

 

Breath hitched in her lungs when she realized they were in the Malfoy Manor. Her already trembling heart started beating even faster; she could feel it in her throat and for a moment she thought it would burst. Her frantic eyes roamed over the room, trying to find a way out even while in binds. She helplessly tried to latch onto anything that looked safe, anything that would give her hope that they would be able to get out of there. There was nothing and she felt her heart sink deeper and deeper in despair.

She can barely hear what’s happening around her, buzzing in her ears deafening the noise. She’s looking for Harry and when her eyes find him they stay there, glued to the throbbing face of her best friend. She doesn’t let herself breathe; she feels that if she does he’s going to disappear in the maze of halls.

 

She thinks she’s misheard him when he says in a small, almost broken voice, that he’s not sure it’s them. Her gaze snaps to him and she wants to hex herself for the way her shoulders visibly relax. Thankfully, everyone’s eyes rest on the blond boy in front of her. She looks at him and for a moment can’t recognize him, not without the snarl on his lips and disgust in his eyes. He doesn’t ooze arrogance, his shoulders are hunched and his eyes, once filled with contempt for seemingly everything, are hiding something that Hermione recognizes as a reflection of her own fear.

 

Bellatrix’s voice is pitched, dancing in excitement, verging on hysteria. Her eyes are widened and her lips are stretched in a grimace that Hermione recognizes as a twisted smile.

Pain that she feels when words ‘Crucio’ leave black-haired witch’s lips is the most excruciating thing she has ever felt.

*******

Hours later when she lies in bed in Bill and Fleur’s house, her whole body aching, her throat tired of screaming and her heart crying for Dobby, she’ll think back to the moment their eyes connected and she’ll think that Draco Malfoy, like all of them was just a teenage boy thrown into the cruel jaws of war and life. And before she falls asleep again she’ll remember the look in his eyes when his gaze connected with hers, moments before Dobby aparated them to safety. She remembers his eyes and wonders if what she saw in them through the haze of pain was relief.

 

Ron and Harry are sitting beside her bed. They’ve just finished planning getting into Bellatrix’s vault when Ron speaks, his voice trembling with anger: “I can’t believe Ferret pretended not to recognize us.”

She looks down at her arms and bandages covering the words that Hermione heard leave Malfoy’s mouth countless times.

“I think he was scared.” Harry says.

“He should be. Probably just realized they’re going to lose and his sorry ass would spend the rest of his life in Azkaban.”

Hermione stays silent, not saying anything, but can’t help but wonder if he’d reveal her if she was there on her own, just a pathetic little mudblood, standing at his feet, her life depending on him.

 

***

There are moments when he can’t let it go. She’s almost haunted by the thought that they were saved by the monsters, and if the glass she’s washing breaks when she puts it back on the counter a little too hard, she denies it to herself that it’s because she is now indebted to the boy who was a regular occurrence in her nightmares in her early years at Hogwarts.

The next time she sees him they are in Hogwarts and the battle around them is raging, hexes flying and screams echoing off the walls that once gave her comfort, but are now exploding around her and for a fleeting moment she is sure that the cries she hears are castle’s itself.

She is running down the stairs, rushing to get to the Great Hall. Someone behind her is calling out her name and she turns around still running, rushing towards the stairs.

She sees Hannah Abbott, her eyes wide and a loud “No!” tearing from her lips. She casts a Protego, trying to protect herself from the unknown hex, but instead of being hit by a curse, she’s thrown to the floor, something hard hitting her.

She falls, her shoulder aching as it hits the floor. Miraculously she doesn’t hit her head, but there’s a weight pressing on her chest, making it hard to breathe. She opens her eyes and finds herself staring into Draco Malfoy’s grey ones. He’s half lying on her, half on the floor. His eyes are frantic almost, sliding over her face.

“What do you think you’re doing, Malfoy?” she asks, breathless, anger seeping from her voice.

His eyebrows furrow and he pushes away from her. “The stairway’s been blown up. Something you might’ve noticed if you weren’t running around like a headless hippogriff.”

She’s left speechless, pushing up onto her elbows, looking at the gaping hole left at the place where once was a moving staircase.

She looks at Malfoy. He’s looking back, behind his back and she can only see half of his face. She can see dust resting on his hair and skin, graying it. He’s breathless and she sees that familiar expression on his face that seems to be permanently latched on her friend’s faces; fear.

“Thank you.” She says, gulping down her pride.

He turns to her and that air of arrogance that always used to follow him appears again; his head held up high, his shoulders squared back. “That’s twice now.”

Her eyes widen a little before narrowing again. “Thank you twice, then.” She pushes through gritted teeth.

“Don’t make it a habit.” He says before walking away.

“You’re the one making it a habit.” She calls after him, goading him.

He falters in his step and she thinks he’ll turn back, but after a moment he keeps walking away, his wand ready in his hand.

 

                                                                                                 ***                                            

They save him in the Room of requirement.

She wonders if her thinks of them as monsters who saved him like she does of him.

 

***

He’s sitting with his parents away from them. She looks at him, a minute too long, and wonders when he stopped being the monster and instead became someone fighting on their side of the war.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a year and I've decided to write this from Draco's POV. I hope you enjoy.

He forgot what living without fear felt like. Sometimes that was the only emotion that he would feel for days. He wasn’t free of the heart-gripping feeling even when he was asleep. His mind was filled with violence and death; blood and massacre; lifeless bodies and screams of those who would be unlucky enough to be tortured instead of just killed. He would wake up drenched in sweat and his cheeks wet with tears. Nightmares hunted him both when his eyes were opened and when they were closed.

Draco doesn’t know when exactly he’d started to wish for Potter to just man up and finish the damn war already; to finish _him._ He doesn’t remember when he’d started to pray at night when he’d lie awake, listening to the screams echoing through the empty hallways of the manor.

He’d have given everything to be able to go back in time and lower his wand at the top of the astronomy tower, to return the taken wand to its rightful owner.

He’d have given everything to be able to go back in time and break that wooden closet instead of fixing it; to blow it up with _reducto_ and then let the flames swallow the remains with _inscendio_ just to _be sure._

Draco doesn’t know when exactly he’d set foot on the path to redemption, but on the day snatchers bring The golden trio at the Manor, he realizes he doesn’t want to stray from it.

 

***

 

He runs when his father calls him, saying ‘ _Hurry up, we maybe have Potter_ ’. He’s on the balcony trying to get air into his lungs because for months now walls of the Manor seem to suck in all the oxygen and leave him with none.

And so he runs towards the room, his heart in his throat, beating faster than it ever has before. He can barely hear anything from the blood coursing through his veins.

  _Please, no,_ **please**.

Those were the only words occupying his mind because if it was true and it was Potter in his house then it was all over. His life would stay the life of terror and pain.

He doesn’t know what to do when they ask him to identify them.

So he lies, tries to be as vague as he can.

In the end, it’s not enough.

Potter and Weasley are taken to the cellars, Greyback’s wand pointed at their backs.

Granger, _Hermione_ is lying on the floor screaming, her body writhing in pain and he _can’t do anything_.

And so he turns away, staring at the tiles on the floor, silently begging his aunt to stop it.

He looks at her once, and thinks that a picture of her lying on the floor, pale and broken, with silent tears sliding down her face, will be forever a presence in his nightmares.

And when a thought, like a whisper, comes to his mind he doesn’t know why it ruffles him more than her screams.

_Not her. Just not_ **her.**

*******

It happens quickly.

The chandelier falls with a muffling noise, glass pieces cutting his face, ripping his skin open. He feels the stinging, but ignores it.

His eyes fly over the room.

His mother is fine.

His father is fine.

His eyes land on the brown-haired girl lying under the rubble of the chandelier.

He doesn’t even realize that Potter has taken the wands from him until his hands are empty.

He stands next to his mother and watches as they apparate. His eyes meet _hers_ and he can see fear mixed with pain and exhaustion and _relief_ in them.

And as they go, for the first time in months, relief finds its place in his heart, the anxious knot unraveling.

But not even that lasts more than a few seconds as he, only a moment later, watches the silver knife fly towards them.

 

***

After he hears about them breaking in at the Gringotts, he waits until he gets to his room to let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding since they left the Manor.

And if his shoulders sag in relief when he hears she’s alive no one has to know why.

 

***

 

He’s lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, when Bellatrix bursts into his room, crazy grin on her lips and a maniacal gleam in her eyes.

He almost snaps at her, snarl already forming on his lips.

“ _Privacy!_ ” he wants to spit out at her “ _You’ve intruded every part of my life already, can’t I have at least one place for myself?!”_

“It’s starting.” She says and his already pale face pales even more and he’s out of his bed faster than he can even process.

He puts on his shoes and runs downstairs towards the voices.

He runs and runs and there’s a voice in his head asking: _“Who’s side are you going to fight on?”_

And as his pulse beats in his ears, his heart gives him the answer and it’s the one he keeps only to himself.

 

***

 

He sees her hair first and almost snorts at it. Her wild curls are flying around her head as she runs through the hexes and explosions. He wonders, for a second, why she didn’t put it in a bun, but then he sees her running towards the blown up staircase and when Abbott screams at her ‘No!’, he almost hexes the red-haired witch because in the next moment Hermione is turning towards her, casting a _Protego_ but is _still running._

He _Stupyfies_ the Death Eater(when did he stop thinking about them as _them_ and not _us_ ) that tries to hex Finnigan in the back and then runs towards Hermione, pushing her to the ground. He manages, somehow, to cradle her head, so she doesn’t hit it too hard when they slam on the floor.

Pain surges through his knuckles as they connect with the cold surface. He’s landed on her with the left side of his body. Her eyes are closed and for a moment his eyes fly over it and if he, even as the battle roars around them, notices that his heart is lying at the top of _her_ heart, no one can blame him.

“What do you think you’re doing, Malfoy?” she asks, sounding breathless and he realizes that’s probably because she can’t breathe properly with him lying on her.

And so he pushes up, frowning, slipping easily into the boy he was, but not the man he’s becoming: “The stairway’s been blown up. Something you might’ve noticed if you weren’t running around like a headless hippogriff.”

Pushing up onto her elbows, she looks at the hole she could’ve been falling down if he wasn’t there.

He turns, ready to walk away, pausing just for a moment, trying to mask the fear that’s oozing through his bones.

“Thank you.” She says and for a moment he’s shocked. He scolds his expression before she can see it and pushes his head up and his shoulders back.

“That’s twice now.” But even as he says it, his voice doesn’t have any bite to it.

“Thank you twice, then.”

“Don’t make it a habit.”

He walks away, but falters when she yells after him, but doesn’t look back at her, no matter how much he wants to.

“You’re the one making it a habit.”

And she’s right.

He is the one making it a habit.

He doesn’t ask himself why; he already knows the answer.

 

***

They save him in the Room of requirement.

He doesn’t say thank you.

***

 

He sees her across the room when she leaves with Weasley.

Her shoulders are almost hunched, probably not knowing how to stay straight without the weight that’s been pressing on them for months, years even, just like his.

He thinks to himself that years ago if someone’d have told him that they’d save his life, he couldn’t comprehend that those _monsters_ saved _his_ life. He would’ve believed it even less if they’d told him he’d save theirs.

But not now, not anymore, because if it weren’t for those he used to think of as monsters, he would have become one instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is always appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like this? If you did and want more please comment or send me a message on Tumblr(stiiliinsski.tumblr.com)!


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